


the force of nature spurned

by plasticities



Category: Justified
Genre: Cooking, Gen, M/M, Post-Season Six, Robbery, Rough Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-09
Updated: 2015-04-09
Packaged: 2018-03-22 02:27:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3711397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plasticities/pseuds/plasticities
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s instinctual, maybe; it runs in his blood the way it always ran in Raylan’s, except he was too idealistic to see it. He sees it now, as he tilts his head back against the seat and lets the wind whip his face. He sees it now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the force of nature spurned

There’s no surprise in this turn of events.

Raylan is the prodigal son, Raylan is Amon. Son of a Manasseh who had never desired to repent, and Raylan reaps now what he sows; his own people are coming for him, to slay him where he sleeps. But they will find an empty bed, because Raylan’s bed is the road and any bed to take as his own.

There was a time he felt like Jesus; making Boyd Judas, but that’s where the analogy stops. Jesus didn’t take off with Judas in the back of a rusty old Jeep J-10 pickup. Jesus didn’t have a gun on his hip and all the glory of a southern boy in his heart who never did get the fuck out of Harlan.

Raylan robs his first convenience store and the thrill it gives him makes him half-hard and half-reckless and when he gets back in the J-10 Boyd tips his head back and laughs at something he sees in Raylan’s face. It’s a wild laugh, like he’s younger, freer (the way he laughed at seventeen). Boyd drives them out of the parking lot at top speed, and Raylan tosses the money into his lap and shoves two fingers against his own throat to feel his jackrabbit pulse. “Fuck,” he says.

“You’re getting better at this,” Boyd says. High praise, from the captain of a sinking ship.

“I know what I’m doing,” Raylan growls back, tilting his hat back on his head. “Watched spineless criminals like you for years.”

Boyd laughs again, like barbed wire on skin or metal scraping metal. “Spineless. Well, I ain’t ever run away from my troubles. How’s about you, ex-marshal Givens?”

-

Raylan knows the thrill of adrenaline, and shouldn’t be surprised when it gets him wired so bad his legs shake. Boyd shouldn’t be surprised when Raylan shoves him up against the door and unbuckles his belt.

He isn’t (it’s not the first time). Raylan convinces himself it’s all hate. It’s at least mostly rage. Boyd doesn’t moan, thank god, but he bites Raylan’s hand when Raylan clamps it over his mouth and then reaches back for him with the hand not etching marks into the wooden door. Raylan twists his arm behind his back and shoves him forward again, bites the back of his neck, not quite hard enough to draw blood. He doesn’t want the taste of Boyd’s blood on his tongue, like prey or worse, like a claim.

Boyd likes it like this, wouldn’t let Raylan touch him any other way even if he wanted to. Raylan’s okay with that; this ain’t Evarts. He doesn’t know Boyd from senior English. He doesn’t even know him from mugshots. He doesn’t even know him from Adam. Not anymore.

In the morning they pack up, and don’t speak. There just ain’t nothing needs saying. Raylan lets Boyd drive, because he knows these back country roads better than anyone, even the ones he’s unfamiliar with. It’s instinctual, maybe; it runs in his blood the way it always ran in Raylan’s, except he was too idealistic to see it. He sees it now, as he tilts his head back against the seat and lets the wind whip his face. He sees it now.

The sun is warm on his forearm and his face, like God’s gift to him, praise of his acceptance of a life he spent forty-some years twisting away from. His window is rolled down all the way, and he tilts his head enough to watch the trees fly past. Boyd turns on the radio. Raylan says, “Where are we going?”

“You say that like we have a concrete destination.”

“Well I figured you were driving for some reason other than to get some fresh air.”

Boyd smiles just a bit, and Raylan catches it from the corner of his eyes. “Ain’t your only concern that where we’re going isn’t here?”

Raylan shifts in his seat, closing his eyes and tilting his head back, trying not to smile as well. “I’ve long since given that up.”

-

They watch the house for three days, and on the fourth day Boyd takes the key from above the doorframe and opens the front door. It’s someone’s summer home, probably. The décor isn’t lived-in décor, but kept-nice décor, and Raylan runs his fingers over a knitted blanket and says, “Reminds me of Charles Monroe’s house. Guess you didn’t know about that.”

“I heard in passing.” Boyd is looking through the cupboards in the kitchen. “You were dating that Alison woman at the time, right?”

Raylan could ask how he knows or even remembers. He kicks his boots off instead. “Yeah. We had fun in that house.”

“So I suppose you’re no stranger to being where you don’t belong, then.”

“Technically,” Raylan says, “I had the legal right.”

“I’m sure you did.”

They go through the house slowly, methodically. It’s empty from top to bottom, and they end up in the living room, Raylan running his fingers over the barrel of his gun and watching Boyd clean his. They found whiskey, but they’re not drinking yet. Raylan knows better these days than to combine alcohol and firearms.

“You think they’ll look for me forever?” Raylan asks, keeping his tone casual.

Boyd shakes his head, angling a cleaning pick and focusing on his gun. “That’s your problem, Raylan.”

Raylan reclines in his chair, abandoning cleaning his own for a moment. He frowns at Boyd, wondering if this is going to turn into a fight. He’s kind of itching for one, kind of itching to throw Boyd down on that bed upstairs as well. “What’s my problem?”

“You think you’re special. I don’t mean that you’re vain, far from it, but you’re of the belief that you’re chosen, that you’re the son of Mary. Always have. But you just a regular person, just like your mama, and your daddy. The law will chase after you ‘til they don’t, Raylan. No longer.”

“You think that I think I’m-”

“It’s the human condition.”

Raylan leans forward and puts his gun back together, closes the case he used to clean it with a snap. He washes his hands in the kitchen, feeling simmering anger he doesn’t understand, and then walks back into the living room and grabs Boyd in a kiss.

Boyd pulls away and lifts his gun up, now reassembled. He points it at Raylan’s heart, says, “Think of all the times you could have died. Do you really think the world was saving you for some higher purpose?”

Raylan looks away. “Not anymore.”

Raylan fucks him soon after, and Boyd bites him hard enough to draw blood, not minding the taste of Raylan’s blood on his tongue. Like Raylan is just anyone, just another person. He slides his thumb over Boyd’s Adam’s apple and wonders what he would sound like dying, for real. Wonders what he would sound like moaning Raylan’s name. Raylan hates him with the hatred of seven years, like seven sins all wrapped up in one man who once fell asleep in the back of Raylan’s truck, one hand on his heart.

-

Boyd’s making chicken parmigiana. Raylan doesn’t know why, but he doesn’t ask because his stomach’s bigger than his curiosity. He pulls himself up onto the counter and stares into a pot on the stove, filled with olive oil, diced onions, oregano, garlic, chopped tomatoes, and what he supposes might be a bay leaf. There’s probably stuff he’s missing too, sitting there soaking in the bottom of the pot. He looks at Boyd. “Chicken in the oven?”

“Mhm.”

“What are you dicing?”

“Fresh tomato, for bruschetta.”

“Huh.”

They are both silent. Raylan swears he can hear the seconds tick by, in Boyd’s knife on someone else’s cutting board, in the ticking of the burner as Boyd turns it on, and the flame that roars to life beneath the pot. He hands Raylan a spoon, says, “If you’re going to just sit there surveying then you might as well stir."

Raylan moves the clumps of tomatoes and spoonfuls of oil around, thinking that this is surprisingly decent for them. He wants to know where Boyd got the chicken from, but he knows Boyd has his ways. Boyd looks mellow, calm as he finds a clove of garlic and a garlic press; he gets this way after sex, like it’s evened him out somehow. Which is funny, because they tear at each other in a way that’s anything but soothing.

Raylan presses the curve of his wooden spoon against a few chunks of tomato, flattening them before swirling them around with the rest. He’s never made sauce from scratch. He’s never cooked much at all.

He watches Boyd’s hands- hands that killed, hands that stole, hands that were covered in coal dust most days of the week for almost two years. And some time after that, when Boyd tried to make something good out of everything bad. Not that Raylan’s convinced he ever tried very hard, but who is he to judge now? Most wanted man in Kentucky, sitting on a stranger’s kitchen counter, making dinner with a known criminal.

Raylan wonders how they’ll go, when they go. If it’ll be a bullet each.

The oven buzzes, and Boyd grabs a pot holder and pulls out the chicken and sets it on a couple cooling racks. “How’s the sauce coming along?”

Raylan looks, aware of what he’s doing again. “Almost there, maybe. I don’t know. Ain’t very well-versed in sauce making.”

“Imagine that. All those years of living in a motel, I figured you’d been cooking every night.”

Raylan ignores him, moving the spoon in loose circles and watching the sauce again. “Used to watch my mama cook.”

“Mm.”

“Her disappointment in me would kill her all over again.”

Boyd glances at him, turning the heat down on the burner and taking the spoon from his hand. “Raylan. This is what was always expected of you.”

Raylan nods slowly, watching him spoon sauce over top of the chicken. “I s’pose it was only me wanting better.”

“There’s no better, or worse. It’s all just living, Raylan.”

They eat together a little later, and it’s good. Real good. Raylan isn’t sure how to say that, or how to thank him, and after a while he just picks his beer up and clinks it against Boyd’s. Boyd raises an eyebrow for a moment, then takes a pull from the mouth of it. Raylan watches him swallow.

-

So here’s how it goes, no surprises:

Raylan lies down in the back of the J-10 pickup, letting the closed bottle of isopropyl alcohol roll away. Boyd’s bandaged up now, lying on his back beside him, staring at the night sky. Raylan says, “Saved your ass.”

“You’ll forgive me for feeling like you owed me one.”

Raylan takes his hat off, settling it over his chest and staring up above as well. “I suppose that’s fair,” he agrees, looking for Orion’s belt. Boyd showed him where it was over twenty years ago. “Boyd?”

“Yes, Raylan.”

“I feel good. About this. There’s something wrong with that.”

“Nothing wrong with it,” Boyd says quietly, turning his head to stare at him. He looks intense and too awake. “It’s just living, Raylan. And now you’re doing it without answering to Arlo, or the mines, or the chief marshal. Just like you always wanted.”

Raylan props himself up on an elbow, looking at the bandage on Boyd’s arm. “It can’t last.”

“Nothing ever does.”

Raylan kisses him, slow. Boyd doesn’t bite him. It’s warm, in contrast to the cold night air, and Raylan wants more, he wants to taste all that he is and remember. He wants to remember Boyd’s hand pulling him out of the mine, the reason he’s still alive. It’s all just living, and Raylan wonders what that living would have been like had he stayed in the first place.

Maybe that doesn’t matter now. Maybe this matters, somehow- Boyd beside him, smiling against his mouth at a joke Raylan hasn’t heard yet. Living in a truck or in other people’s homes, running until they won’t have to run anymore, because they’ll be caught by bullets or get away. Boyd is the outlaw, and Raylan can live with that now.

It’s just living.

**Author's Note:**

> title from Sufjan Stevens's "All Delighted People"


End file.
